Baul Dimension
I visited Dhaka in Bangladesh twice for the Baul Dimension production project. The French Foreign Ministry has helped me to setup my trip . Mr Raynouart and Mr Steyer, cultural advisors for the French Embassy of Dhaka, gave me a great support as well.
As soon as i landed the first time in Dhaka, I was chocked by the poverty, pollution, huge traffic, overcrowded city. However, day after day, moving from place to another, I found out that everybody I bumped into was smiling, warm and friendly. To understand my impressions be free to watch “Positive Bangla”. This video I’ve made with my shoots of smiling people on the streets of Dhaka.
The 2 times I’ve recorded in Dhaka, my Friend Bari Siddiqui gave me a big help for organize the recordings sessions.
Bari is a very famous flautist and singer in the country. He is an incredible artist who has gigs all around the world and he also makes music for Bangladeshi movies. Bari helped me in selecting some of the best musicians on the place: Firuz Khan, Norul Haque, Rita, Sonil, Rabindra Svatil Paul, Sheik Jasim and some other great musicians. You can listen to all of them through many of my tunes.
Every morning i used to the studio by rickshaw, baby taxi. I remember one day there has been a general strike in the transport !! For my second trip to Dhaka, I ‘ve recorded my samples at “Tones and Tunes Studio”, a funny place located in an accommodation building and equipped with 80’s mixing desk and tape machines . Everybody out there was so nice and astonished to be visited by a guy coming from France and making some unusual music! They told me that they “have never seen European people here to record !! “ Bangladeshi studios are odd places, always full of people: someone for the tea, someone for the food an other one for opening